


A Visitor in the Storm

by howthemoonsuitsthenightsky



Category: Anne of Green Gables - L. M. Montgomery
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Patty's Place, Sharing a Bed, Snowed In
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-09
Updated: 2020-02-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 19:40:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22631173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/howthemoonsuitsthenightsky/pseuds/howthemoonsuitsthenightsky
Summary: Gilbert Blythe was supposed to come and visit Anne Shirley at Patty's Place, but when a snowstorm hits, Anne thinks she won't see him that day. That is until she receives a knock at the door.
Relationships: Gilbert Blythe & Anne Shirley, Gilbert Blythe/Anne Shirley
Comments: 12
Kudos: 156





	A Visitor in the Storm

**Author's Note:**

> There are so many missing bits in Anne of the Island, so this was a little idea that came to me for what might have happened one night in Anne's second year at Redmond.

Anne stood at the living room window inside Patty’s Place, having to wipe away condensation from the glass so she could see out. In a mere hour, the soft greens of the front garden had gone completely white, covered so thickly with snow that even the front gate was half submerged. 

Anne cast her gaze back to the grandfather clock that stood in the corner of the room. It was coming up to four, the time when she and Gilbert had arranged that he would come over, but from the way the weather outside looked, Anne assumed that his visit would be postponed until further notice. 

She silently drew the curtains, the only sound reaching her being the ticking of the clock and Rusty’s small mews as he warmed himself in front of the fire. “Just you and me then,” Anne said to him as she turned one of the chairs so that it faced the fire more directly. The cat gave a little shake of his head in response, before he let it settle on top of his paws. 

Anne sighed at his response, expecting far too much from a cat. Though she couldn’t help but keep the smile from her face at the thought of reading in front of the fire in the empty Patty’s Place, all in the middle of a snowstorm. Kicking off her shoes, she sank back into her armchair, letting her feet tuck themselves underneath the warmth of her skirts and opened her book to the place where she had been forced to shut it the night before, as the sun began to rise no less. 

The next moment that Anne opened her eyes, she found the fire still burned healthily but her book tumbled to the floor beside her. Rusty was glaring clean at her, his fur standing on end behind his ears. “Sorry,” Anne said as she stood up to pick up her book. “I won’t let it happen again.”

Just as she prepared to sit down again, she heard a knock at the front door. The cat, who had remained in his glaring position, let out a small hiss. “Calm down,” Anne told the cat with a sigh as she made her way to the front door.

As soon as her hand touched the handle, she felt the difference in temperature. Opening the door, she braced herself for the chill, but nothing could have prepared herself for the site in front of her. “Gilbert!” She exclaimed, her eyes widening as she took in the sight of him. 

Standing on the porch of Patty’s Place was Gilbert Blythe, covered in snow, with his face almost as pale at the heaven sent material, his hands wrapped tightly around what Anne believed to be books, but until the snow was removed from them, it was merely guesswork.

“Anne,” he managed to mutter out, his speech muffled by his inability to move his lips as well as his thick scarf.

She quickly reached out her arm to pull him inside and shut the door behind him even faster. Without thinking, she started to brush the snow off him, creating small piles on the wooden floor around him. “Why on Earth did you leave your boarding house?” Anne questioned as she continued brushing. “Did you not see the weather? Gosh, you must be freezing.” At that moment, Anne looked up at her school chum’s face, but was met with an expression of blankness.

She guided him into the living room, making sure to shut the door behind her in the hope of preserving as much warmth as possible, despite how cold Patty’s Place could get. For the first time, perhaps ever, Rusty responded to being shooed, clearing enough space for Anne to manoeuvre around the armchair as she guided Gilbert into it.

“Don’t lean back yet,” she ordered as she knelt down in front of him, though from his still blank expression, it didn’t seem he was capable of doing anything without being pushed and prodded into carrying out the right movements.

She reached for the books, sliding them upwards and out of his gloved hands. Gilbert let out a small gasp of pain as the friction burnt his hands; Anne was just glad that he hadn’t lost the ability to feel them at all. She pressed upwards so that she was kneeling at full height to remove his scarf and firmly grasp his coat buttons as she undid them, releasing more hidden snow as the coat came further and further apart. Standing once more, she guided the material off his shoulders, but found she couldn’t get it passed his elbows, still bent from where they had been clutching the books. 

“I’m sorry Gilbert, but I’m going to need you to straighten your arms so I can get this coat off you.” She saw his nod ever so slightly before his arms slowly began to straighten. As soon as they were, Anne wasted no time in removing his coat and casting it onto the floor alongside his soaked books and scarf. 

Kneeling in front of him once more to remove his gloves and shoes, which earned her even more gasps of complaint, she saw that his shirt was also soaked through. “Oh Gilbert,” she sighed, standing to pull his shirt up over his head.

“I’m sorry, Anne,” Gilbert whispered as the wet material peeled off his arms. Seeing that his undershirt was just as sodden, Anne repeated the process, trying not to look at his bare chest and arms as the material came away.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Anne retorted. “I mean, your own stupidity certainly, but we’re in the situation now, so we just need to deal with it.” She glanced at the fire momentarily, before returning her gaze to his face, which thankfully seemed to be gaining more colour by the second. “If I undo the button on your trousers, do you think you can get them off alright?”

Gilbert nodded, to which Anne responded by quickly and efficiently undoing the button before backing away, using the excuse of picking up his sodden clothes from the floor to keep her gaze averted.

“I’m going to hang these in the kitchen and get a towel and some blankets,” she informed him, swiftly leaving the room. 

On completion of her tasks and with towels and blankets in her arms, Anne returned to the living room to find Gilbert sat as far forward in the chair as gravity would allow, his hands held in front of the fire as he stretched his fingers. Anne let her pile fall next to his chair. “Not so close.” She granted herself a small slap on the back of his palm, to deter him as she used to do with Davy. “You’ll get chill blains and be complaining of the pain all night.”

Gilbert sat up, pulling himself back from the fire as Anne picked up the towel. She started with his legs, drying up the water that had caused all the hairs on his legs to lie flat and long. Thankfully, at least in the case of Anne’s blush getting any deeper, his drawers seemed to have escaped the wrath of the snow and she was instead able to move swiftly from his legs to his arms. 

Holding his wrist lightly in one hand, she ran the towel down from Gilbert’s shoulder down to past his elbow. “Whatever were you doing,” she muttered to herself more than the man in front of her, but as it was just the two of them, he felt obliged to respond.

“I was studying in the library and when it got to closing time, I was kicked out. I hadn’t even realised it had started snowing and well, I’d agreed to visit. Patty’s Place is closer to Redmond than my boarding house and I thought it would be okay.” Gilbert’s lips continued to quiver from the cold as he spoke, making his words seem almost alien to Anne.

She moved on to his other arm, trying to be as gentle as possible with her drying, for as idiotic as Gilbert Blythe could be, she could tell the situation wasn’t entirely down to him. “I’m glad you came to me at least then, Patty’s Place may be cold, but your boarding house is far worse if my memory serves me right.”

She forced herself to smile and keep the conversation light, knowing that she was about to move onto drying his chest. The last time she had seen Gilbert without a shirt on was the final summer before she went to Queen’s, when she and her schoolfriends had a picnic together next to the Lake of Shining Waters. Then she had been only sixteen and quite disgusted when the boys had stripped down to go for a swim, but it was different, not only because Gilbert had changed, his torso much more muscular and defined than it had been, but also because this situation was a far more intimate one. It was, after all, just the two of them, alone in Patty’s Place with Gilbert almost naked. Anne could imagine the look of horror that would come over Mrs Lynde’s face if she were to ever find out.

The chattering of Gilbert’s teeth shocked her out of her thoughts. Placing the towel down on the floor, she held the back of her palm up against his forehead. “Are you still cold?” She asked the question as she withdrew her hand. 

“I feel better than I did, but by the time I got here, I wasn’t feeling so cold anymore anyway.” As Anne stepped back, he rubbed his hands together in front of the fire.

“Gilbert, you do know that’s an awfully bad sign, don’t you?”

“What? Not being cold anymore is a bad sign?” Gilbert questioned, looking up at her face, her auburn hair reflecting red in the firelight.

“Yes, if you’re out in the cold and you don’t feel so cold anymore, it’s a sign of hypothermia.” Gilbert’s expression showed no sign of remembering such information. “And I thought you were the one who was thinking about becoming a doctor,” Anne sighed. 

“Well, yes, but just because I’m thinking about it doesn’t mean I know every symptom of every illness,” he responded, a small smile fighting its way past his pale lips. Anne had to fight the urge to roll her eyes.

***

As the clock struck nine, Anne and Gilbert were sat in front of the fire, the latter in the armchair clothed in a large blouse that Anne believed belonged to Aunt Jamesina and wrapped in a blanket while the former sat at his feet, her head lulled against his thighs as she fought off the overwhelming urge to shut her eyes and fall asleep. 

“I think I should be trying to head back,” Gilbert sighed, bringing his hands onto the arms of the chair so he could push himself up. 

Anne’s head shot up off his legs and she turned to face him, her glare halting any advance he tried to make. “No, you will not, Gilbert Blythe! It’s taken us this long to get you to a place where you feel up to leaving and I’m not having it undone by you trying to walk home.” Gilbert refrained from admitting that he’d actually been feeling much better for the past two hours at least, but hadn’t wanted to move, not with Anne tucked against him. Anne, on the other hand, took his silence as admittance. “See. You’ll have to stay here.”

“Whereabouts here?” Gilbert asked, raising his eyebrows in a slight challenge.

“You can’t stay down here,” Anne admitted. “I’ll need to put the fire out, if we left it going all night there’s no reason the room wouldn’t fill with smoke and choke you to death. And the girls would murder me if I let you sleep in their beds when they were here to give their consent. Plus, their rooms will be bitterly cold because they’ve all been away since yesterday.” Anne looked down at her skirt, fiddling the material between her thumb and forefinger. “So, you’ll have to stay in my room.”

Her words came out at the exact moment Gilbert said, “So, I’ll have to go home.”

The were both stunned into silence at each other’s words. “We just agreed that you can’t go home, Gilbert.”

“In your room though, Anne? Where will you sleep?” Gilbert leant forward in the chair enough that Anne could see the flush of his cheeks and the reflection of the fire in his eyes.

“Well, I’ll sleep in my room too, of course. I’ve shared beds with my friends before, Diana more than I can remember and Jane a fair few times.” Anne couldn’t help a flush rising in her own cheeks to match Gilbert’s.

They both sat in silence for a moment, both knowing that they would be sharing a bed as slightly more than friends, the notion obvious to Gilbert, though still hidden in the furthest corner of Anne’s mind. Gilbert was the one to give in, knowing that revealing his feelings to Anne, though he was sure as long as she could see what was in front of her own eyes, his feelings were obvious, would mean risking their friendship.

“Lead the way.” His voice cracked, but Anne, it seemed, didn’t notice. She immediately got up and lit a candle before she started to put out the fire. From his position across the room, Rusty mewed in protest but once again, this was ignored by Anne, who picked up the candle and headed towards the living room door.

“Come on then.” She held the door open for Gilbert, looking back into the dark room to find him. She held the candle low so that they could both see where their feet were treading. “We usually have the whole hallway lit in the evenings,” Anne spoke with a softer tone than she had before, “but it never seems worth it when there’s just me here, or even just me and Aunt Jamesina, as it often is.” Her rambling stopped as they reached the top of the stairs.

Gilbert could feel the temperature drop as he stood on the top step behind Anne and he found himself letting out an involuntary shiver. “You weren’t joking about Patty’s Place being cold.” He pulled the blanket closer around him and Anne was reminded by looking at him that he was wearing barely anything for such a cold winters night, or for being in a lady’s presence, as she was sure Mrs Lynde would remind her if she were present. 

“Would you mind waiting at the door a moment while I get changed?” Anne asked, grateful at least that in the candlelight that the reddening of her cheeks would be less obvious. 

“Of course.” The pair made their way to Anne’s door. As she entered, she left the door open and placed the candle on the set of draws just in the entry to the room, giving them both enough light to see. Gilbert, on hearing the sounds of Anne undress, made the unconscious decision to take on the role of rambling. “You know, I’ve never been upstairs in Patty’s Place.” He didn’t give Anne enough time to respond before continuing. “It’s nice, not quite as ostentatious as downstairs, but then that would be quite a challenge. Still, at least there are no cushions to trip us up on the stairs. Then we might have more than hypothermia to worry about.”

“I’m finished!” Anne called, interrupting what was, she worried, about to become a speech about cushions. 

Gilbert entered to find Anne dressed in a long nightdress, unpinning her hair in front of a small mirror. He stood still, captivated as each strand fell onto her shoulders. If he had been in less control of his body, he knew he would have gone to stand behind her and let the soft strands run through his fingertips. 

“Which side do you want?” Anne asked as she began to plait her hair, turning her gaze to the bed before looking back in the mirror.

It was then that Gilbert was able to take in the rest of the room around him. The aforementioned bed was tucked in between the wall and vanity, headboard against the plain corridor separating wall. 

“The right side, the wall side that is.” If he had been truthful, he would have told Anne that he had no preference but figured at least he could tuck himself against the wall, if necessary, with no fear of falling out. 

Anne merely nodded. “After you then,” she said securing her final braid. Gilbert brought the blanket to the bed with him, unsure of what else to do with it, but as he pulled back the covers and started to climb in, Anne stopped him. “Are you going to keep that blanket all to yourself then?” He turned to find her arm already outstretched and waiting to receive the garment. “We can put that and the one I usually have on top for extra warmth.”

Gilbert handed it over, trying to seem unfazed by the fact that, once again, he was back in front of Anne in his underwear, though he was thankfully for the, however thin, blouse so that he showed a little less skin. 

Once he was under the covers, Anne pulled them up over him, bringing the thick duvet up to his chin. After unfolding the blanket that rested at the end of the bed and adding the one that Gilbert had been shrouded in, she folded back a corner for herself. Bringing the candle over from the draws and placing it on the vanity, she got in, making Gilbert realise how close they would actually be for the night. 

He felt himself breath in sharply as one of Anne’s cool feet brushed against his leg. “Sorry,” she whispered, leaning over to blow out the candle and plunging them both into darkness. Gilbert continued to lie stark still as Anne rolled onto her side so that she was facing him. “You know, I’m actually sort of glad you’re here.”

When she didn’t add anything else, Gilbert let out a small hum to let her know that he wanted her to continue. 

“I get a bit scared when I’m here by myself at night, when I can’t hear the sounds of the girls in their rooms.” He could feel her let out a sigh as the air moved against his cheek. 

“Then I’m glad I could be here,” he whispered back, giving himself that small admittance.

Her hand moved down towards his and before he knew it, their fingers were intertwined. “Goodnight.” Her whisper seemed final, so he gave her hand a reassuring squeeze in reply. 

He lay there in disbelief until he heard Anne’s breathing even out in sleep and only then he allowed himself to drift off, a smile crossing his face that would stay until well past morning.


End file.
